live exhibition line-up
SANDY BROWN
The many and varied works of this celebrated ceramicist and sculptor are the very essence of vitality. We present some of her largescale paintings on canvas. Like all of the output of this Devon-based artist, they are vibrant, colourful and sizzling with energy.
Between 11:00 and 17:00 on Saturday, May 26 Sandy is running an open-to-everyone workshop, which she is calling Playing with Clay. This is a rare opportunity to create together with one of the most celebrated artists in the West country.
DRAGOMIR MISINA
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This Bath painter’s energised work is also on a large scale. It is a direct expression of the idea of living in the moment. Dragomir writes: “I use the process of painting to document physical and psychological presence. The starting point of each painting is based on some form of narrative. However, in the process of painting, it is not a question of making ever more references to the narrative, but a deliberate attempt to escape from it.”
RENATA BUZIAK
An Australian artist who draws on extensive discussions with members of the Quandamooka aboriginal community of Minjerribah (North Stradbroke Island). Renata's images of medicinal plants are based on the fusion of organic and photographic materials in a process of decomposition which she calls biochrome.
She says : "Through this work, I hope to reveal a beauty in decomposition and raise notions of transformative cycles. This focus on Minjerribah medicinal plants aims to promote the recognition, appreciation, and value of local medicinal plants in the context of Aboriginal knowledge and natural science."
MARK TAMER
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This London artist enacts the decay of the material the work is made from – creatively maltreating Polaroids by attacking their chemical structure, then transferring the results to metal.
If I seem a little jittery I can't restrain myself
I'm falling into fancy fragments - can't contain myself
I'm gonna breakdown
Breakdown, Buzzcocks
AINE KELLY
A Cork artist, now based in Bristol, Aine also uses chemical processes to make her work. But in her case the processes arise from exposure of light-sensitive paper to the natural elements, for example by tying the paper to a tree and letting natural processes create sensitive, subtle effects.
Aine plans to make new work onsite at live, between 11:00 and 17:00 on Saturday, May 26, and on other days during the exhibition.
WILLIE ROBB
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This artist, from Brighton, uses the resilience of plants as a metaphor for the struggle of people against the forces of austerity and inequality. Using as his subjects plants that have forced themselves through the cracks in pavements, he celebrates the imperative to live and grow, despite the most hostile conditions.
JAN O’HIGHWAY
“I’m curious about our conventional view of beauty. Can the decaying form have value and interest equal to, or even more than, that of the perfect bloom? So easy to see in a plant, not so easy to see in my own aging body.” Jan, who is based in Devon, uses the camera as a principal tool.
DIANE SHILLITO
Diane, an MA student at Leeds, explores similar themes to Jan, but her chosen medium is the physical process of decay over time. She places natural objects, such as flowers and leaves, between transparent sheets, and invites passing viewers to observe their gradual transformation over100 days or more.
Diane is placing works around Bath, and in the chapel graveyard during the period of the live exhibition.
GEOFF DUNLOP
Like many of the others in this exhibition, this Somerset artist is fascinated by the effects of time, as they erode evidence of past lives, even of memory. Yet these acts of erasure are themselves signs of the inevitable progress of the dynamic forces of renewal. And, as the actions of growth and decay fuse together, so too do those things made by human hand and by the processes of nature.
Geoff is one of three artists in live making use of the chapel windows as a context for their work. His diptych of translucent prints alter their appearance in response to the ever-changing light that shines through them.
SOPHIE ERIN COOPER
Sophie creates one of her delicate, organic, site-specific drawings directly on to glass. All of the works of this Bath artist have a vitality running through them, but of the subtle, gentle kind, where the shadow can be as significant as the object which casts it.
ANYA BEAUMONT
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A Corsham artist who creates an almost-alive metal sculpture which appears to float in the changing light of the south-facing window.
MARTIN STANIFORTH
This artist from Devon presents Chaetonotus, an alabaster-white statue which emerges above the gravestones surrounding the chapel. The piece induces a neo-classical mood but, instead of portraying a goddess or nymph, Chaetonotus depicts 1mm sea creature magnified 2,000 times.
Between11:00 and 17:00 on Saturday, May 26 Martin will be running an impromptu sculpture workshop, making use of found materials.
FIONA HINGSTON
Fiona observes, with the meticulous care that is her trade mark, the economic, social and cultural changes going on around her home and studio in rural Somerset. For her drawings of the abandoned milk parlour -the last cow was milked here 10 years ago- she used charcoal and pastel, but her furrow drawing introduces the natural medium of the earth it depicts.
CLARA DIAS
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This London artist creates works that allude to the lacerations and sufferings of the human body. Clara writes: “I inflict trauma, wounding, tears and gravity on to the canvases’ surface, through a very physical way of experimentation: soaking, adding, ripping off and stitching. Throughout these processes, I encounter accident, chance, error and frustration...”
CHLOE FELDMAN EMISON
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This Massachusetts artist writes: “I make drawings (pen and ink, or watercolor and inks, sometimes metallic, sometimes with gold leaf, sometimes with coffee or glue or glass glitter) that ultimately depend on close observation of nature, although in most cases they show that which could never have actually been observed.”
ANWYL COOPER-WILLIS
A Welsh artist, now resident in Bristol, Anwyl has made a small egg-shaped shrine for an object of cultural significance, possibly. Anwyl writes: ” We appear to worship celebrity and to believe in its magic touch. These potatoes are just potatoes, but having been purchased by Tate Modern and exhibited as part of an installation, Kartoffelhaus, by Sigmar Polke, they are now completely transmogrified, and without physical alteration, into magical, blessed potatoes.”